Linn Klimax LP12 and Ekstatik - Fidelity Magazine

Linn today announces the latest iteration of their flagship turntable, Klimax LP12. It will make its public debut at the Dutch Audio Event, Eindhoven, this Saturday 30th October.

The Linn Klimax LP12 now features new Radikal, comprising hyper-accurate speed management technology, a whisper-quiet power supply, and state-of-the-art motor design. Additionally, this turntable scales new heights of fidelity thanks to extensive experimentation in material science – culminating in the breakthrough that is the all-new flagship cartridge, Ekstatik.

This marks the conquest of a new summit of performance, at the top of the industry-leading Sondek LP12 range. With new Klimax LP12, listeners will experience their favourite albums – both cherished classics and those freshly unwrapped – as if it were for the first time.

New Klimax LP12 sustains rotation closer to 33⅓rpm than any turntable; and thus produces the most musical, pitch-perfect performance from a Sondek LP12 ever. Linn has designed, manufactured, and released more than forty upgrades for Sondek LP12 in the course of its forty-eight year history; with each consecutive upgrade improving its performance, and keeping it ahead.

Gilad Tiefenbrun, Linn’s Managing Director, said: “Announcing Sondek LP12 upgrades is always an exciting time at Linn; but when they improve our very best version, the Klimax LP12, it’s doubly exciting. Between our new Radikal motor, motor control unit, and power supply – and our new reference cartridge, Ekstatik – we’ve achieved an astonishing leap in performance.”

New Radikal – 33.3333333 is the magic number

Motor Control

Even minor speed changes from a turntable’s motor will result in the music’s pitch deviating from the original performance. Linn’s new, reference turntable power supply features hyper-accurate speed management technology; generating sustained, uniform rotation closer to 33⅓rpm than any turntable.

Customers will experience even more of their music, in perfect pitch, thanks to a digitally (FPGA) managed motor control, and the latest, precision-engineered motor technology. Accurate to five times tighter tolerance than its predecessor, new Radikal’s persistent autocalibration makes for more consistent and accurate speed management than ever before – rendering its performance hyper-accurate and faithful to the recording.

Power Supply

The improved board design at the heart of new Radikal incorporates whisper-quiet power supply rails, coupled with the use of smaller, more modern components – yielding the all-time lowest noise floor in a Sondek LP12. An all-new, 6-layer board – designed and manufactured in-house – facilitates shorter signal paths, smaller componentry, and minimal overall noise, via dedicated ground and power planes.

These quieter, regulated supply rails not only provide impeccably pure power to the motor, but have the added halo effect of making Linn’s Urika phono stages sound even better. What’s more, new Radikal has migrated to a precision reference voltage, served up by a new DAC derived from technology found in Linn’s network streamer range.

Motor

New Radikal’s cutting-edge motor design generates negligible electromagnetic interference, effectively eliminating it as a source of distortion. To make things mechanically quieter than ever, an all-new acoustic housing decouples the motor from the deck more effectively.

The motor itself features smaller, lower-noise components, making everything electrically quieter than ever too.

Ekstatik – All-new flagship moving coil cartridge

In order to make its best cartridge ever, Linn needed to look further afield, and at more varied materials. They conducted extensive experiments; auditioning different materials and configurations for the body, inserts, cantilever, suspension, windings and leads. The result is Ekstatik – the new jewel in the crown of the Linn cartridge range.

Setting a new bar for arm/cartridge synergy; Ekstatik’s unique construction forges an harmonious synergy with the Ekos SE tonearm; wicking away more unwanted resonances along the arm, and out through the suspended sub-chassis.

In the search for ever better materials, Linn’s experiments led them to the implementation of aluminium-bronze inserts. Now a feature of Ekstatik, these inserts allow listeners to reap the sonic benefits this alloy possesses. With a custom honeycomb cut into the cartridge body, Ekstatik is skeletonised so that overall mass is reduced to Linn’s preferred sweet spot of close to 7g.

A micro-ridge stylus on a sapphire cantilever makes for an extraordinarily responsive cartridge. The sapphire cantilever is far stiffer than boron or aluminium, resulting in less loss between the stylus and the generator.

Ekstatik is an agile, responsive cartridge, with the added performance yielded from specifying these materials; masterfully matched in unique configurations.